


Exceptions

by AetherAria



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Dangit, Established Relationship, Gentle Sex, Lizard Kissin' Tuesday (Penumbra Podcast), Multi, Other, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Second Citadel (Penumbra Podcast), Sleepy Sex, i'm not a scalie but i'm also not a coward, oh i forgot i still don't know how to tag smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-06
Updated: 2019-11-06
Packaged: 2021-01-24 00:55:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21329578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AetherAria/pseuds/AetherAria
Summary: Rilla wakes Arum. The results are much more satisfying, this time.
Relationships: Lord Arum/Rilla (Penumbra Podcast), Lord Arum/Sir Damien/Rilla (Penumbra Podcast)
Comments: 32
Kudos: 151





	Exceptions

**Author's Note:**

> happy lizard kissin tuesday, fellow monsterfuckers. it's nano and i am a mess, but i'm already over 10k and y'all! get! SMUT. also arum has two cocks that retract when he ain't using them and y'all just gotta be okay with that if you're hanging out here, okay? okay. Someday i'll finish that fic about their first time and we'll REALLY unpack all that, but for now we're all just living with it. have fun!

Early in their relationship, Arum sleeps very lightly when he shares a bed with Rilla, or Damien, or the pair of them together. He is unused to another body sharing his space, unused to nighttime movement, and even a light touch can wake him with a jolt, with a snarl. He apologizes each time, though Rilla understands. It makes perfect sense, actually, and she manages to get halfway through an offer to sleep in a different room if she’s disturbing him before Arum snaps an insistent denial, drawing her closer to him, clinging and growling into her hair with an exhausted sort of honesty. It’s- wildly flattering, actually, how vehemently he wants her and Damien to remain wrapped around him in sleep, even if it interrupts his rest pretty frequently for the first month or so, until he grows accustomed to their presence in his life and in his bed.

Now he sleeps as deeply as either of his lovers, sleeps even more deeply than he does alone, if his analysis of the situation is right (and Rilla has her own theories about why, something to do with the safety of companions and the heat of their mammalian bodies against his own), and Rilla doesn’t need to worry at all anymore about rousing him with her tendency to wake often throughout the night, slipping off for a sip of water or jolting upright with an idea that needs to be jotted down on the pad she keeps beside the bed.

She doesn’t need to worry about waking him- unless she _wants_ to wake him, of course.

Damien is at the barracks again. He’s been busy helping with preparations for an upcoming festival (particularly, the archery competition they’re putting on before the feast), and Rilla drifts up out of a dream of movement and heat and touch already conveniently pillowed against Arum’s chest.

She blinks in the dark, cataloging what she can remember of the dream for future consideration, and then she focuses her gaze on the curved lines of her monster in the dark, her mind already buzzing, her skin already tingling.

Arum is always beautiful. When he’s sleeping, though, the natural, unselfconscious whole of him leaves her nearly breathless. She’s not alone on that front, she knows, because she is the only one with whom Damien can share the early drafts of his near countless poems about their mutual monster, and _Lord Arum in Repose_ is a theme that has cropped up almost as often as the parallel of dueling and dance.

Arum is beautiful, and Rilla feels so indescribably lucky that she’s allowed to see his beauty from this intimately close. And not just _see._ No, she’s allowed to do so much more than just _see_ him, now-

Arum doesn’t wake when she shimmies carefully out of her sleep clothes, and her monster sleeps without anyway so she doesn’t need to worry about that waking him either. He doesn’t wake when she slips her leg more deliberately over his hips, putting herself in a position to straddle him just by straightening up. He doesn’t wake when she runs her hands slowly across his shoulders, or when she presses her lips softly to his collarbone, or when she drags her nails down his chest. His breathing shifts, though, taking on the feeling of a deep, contented sigh, and she smiles as she works her fingers in gentle circles along his front, down his sides, as she rocks her hips against his just barely, just softly.

Arum still isn’t awake as she presses her mouth against his neck, flicking her tongue against his scales. He isn’t awake, but she feels the moment when he starts to _purr_, the low rumble in his throat tickling her lips.

Rilla’s heart stutters in her chest, and a few specific lines of Damien’s poems spring to the surface of her mind for a moment before she can swallow the lump in her throat. Purring for her, even in his sleep… Saints above she would be happy to give this creature _everything_. She’ll give him as much as she can, tonight.

She tilts his head softly to the side, then kisses methodically up the edge of his frill, up his neck, feeling the rhythm of his pulse beneath her lips, and then she nips lightly at the corner of his jaw.

She feels the exact moment when he truly wakes, when his purring stutters for a moment and then grows louder, when his body rolls softly up into hers, when his breathing goes sharp and sweet and surprised, and a moment later his eyes slit open, violet and fixed on her through the darkness.

Rilla smiles down at him, slow and sly, and then she shifts to straddle him properly.

He gasps, hissing on the exhale as she rocks her hips against his, and his eyes slip back closed as his mouth slips open.

“Amaryllis,” he murmurs, his voice even rougher than usual with sleep. He lifts his hands, one pair raking careful claws up her lower back, the other pair (the claws carefully trimmed and dulled for moments like this) drifting up her front.

“Is this okay?” she asks, because he has given her permission to wake him this way, and this isn’t the first time she’s taken him up on that permission, but still she wants to make sure-

He hisses, his hands tightening on her back and holding her closer, his entire body rolling up into hers in one sinuous wave, and when he flicks his tongue out to draw up her neck he growls, “Better than my most extravagant dreams, Amaryllis. You are- you are-” his voice breaks entirely into his purr, and Rilla feels the desire coil hot inside of her.

“Yeah,” Rilla says, and then she grins and nips at his jaw again, “you are too.”

She rolls her hips against his, slow and determined, and she mentally notes all of the fascinating, breathy, whirring ticking noises he gives at her touch, the way he responds to her. Then his hands on her tighten, strong and sturdy and careful, and she laughs bright and surprised as he rolls over with her, reversing their positions as easily as turning a page, and his body is warm and heavy and solid above her. She is very, very aware of that solidity, of his hips between her spread legs.

“Amaryllis,” he growls above her, “I believe you are _looking_ for trouble, waking a monster in the dead of night-”

“Oh, I’m always looking for trouble.” She grins up at him and wriggles her hips in just the right way to make him lose his breath. “What exactly do you plan to do about it, Arum?”

He laughs, low and panting, and then lowers his head to drag careful teeth along her shoulder. “I believe I shall give you exactly what you desire, little human,” he purrs into her skin, and then his tongue flicks out to taste the crook of her neck, his breath hot and his hands on her hips, on her chest, in her hair, heat growing between his legs and hers, and Rilla bites her lip against the force of her smile.

“Trouble?” she asks through a laugh, but when he looks at her again his expression goes a little more serious, a little more warm.

“Exactly what you desire,” he repeats, softer. “Whatever it is that you want from me.” He presses his cheek against hers, nuzzling close and curling his tongue around his ear, his hips rocking slow against her. “Though I am curious what prompted this awakening, I will admit.”

“Dreamed about you,” Rilla says, her mouth against his scales, and then she licks a warm line up his neck beside his frill, drinking in the way that makes him gasp, the way his hips jerk automatically. “Couldn’t exactly resist you right next to me after that.”

“I… yes, I suppose that- no reason to deny yourself-” he pants a breath out, and then he uses the hand he has buried in her hair to tilt her face towards his again, so he can look her in the eye. “What did you dream, Amaryllis? Tell me- please. Tell me what you desire from me.”

Rilla doesn’t blush easily, but the way he’s looking at her now- that hunger, that eagerness to please-

She loves him. _So_ much. And hey, if he wants to spoil her a little-

“Apparently I’m a little obsessed with your mouth,” she says with a sly sort of grin. “Seems like I dream about your tongue on me at least once a week-”

Arum makes a noise that is undeniably a whine, all his hands flexing against her, and then he buries his teeth carefully into her neck, jagged and gentle at the same time. “Amaryllis,” he groans, and then he moves again, whip-quick as he slithers down, two hands at her waist, two slipping up beneath her thighs, lifting her hips from the bed as she gives a shocked, delighted laugh, and then he stares up at her with desperate violet eyes from between her knees and she can’t laugh anymore because _oh_, oh he is so-

“Amaryllis,” he murmurs again, and then his tongue slips out, tickling her inner thigh. “Is this- may I-”

“You’re completely ridiculous if you think I’m gonna say _no_, Arum,” she breathes, and then she bites her lip hard when his tongue brushes closer to where she wants it, and she can feel the heat of his breath on her. “Ah-”

Usually Rilla feels like she has to push against Arum’s intense caution when it comes to sex, has to remind him that his _delicate little humans_ can take quite a bit more than he assumes they can, but when it comes to this particular sort of play, she’s grateful for his level of control. He nips his teeth so incredibly carefully at her inner thigh before he hones in on her heat, his tongue slipping out and dragging against her folds, and he growls hungrily when he finds her already wet, from the dream of him doing precisely this, from anticipation. And of course she’s eager, of course she’s already ready for more, Rilla knows _exactly_ what she wants, and Arum’s mouth, Arum’s tongue- they rank pretty damn high on her list.

Rilla loves Arum’s noises. She _especially_ loves those noises when she can feel them vibrating through her, when she can feel him so close and hot, and when he wastes no time slipping his tongue deftly inside of her she can _feel_ the purr rumbling in his chest. His narrow tongue twists, and then he laps at her, hungry and impatient as she squirms and reaches down to grasp a horn in one hand, her other hand dropping to lightly circle her own clit as he lathes his tongue lower.

Arum’s eyes slit back open and he watches her touch herself while his mouth is busy lower down. He growls low and it shivers through her, and then he shifts, pulling his tongue away. She frowns for only a moment before he presses a textured finger inside of her instead (claws on two hands carefully trimmed and buffed to softness- yeah, she’s not gonna say she’s _entirely_ ungrateful for his level of caution), and his tongue finds a new place to press, twining around her fingers and brushing her clit.

His tongue-

It works on her like nothing else, precise pressure against her most sensitive point, friction and heat and his eyes slip closed again like he’s as lost in this as she is, and with even just a single finger pressing into her as well it’s hard to focus on anything else but the monster between her legs, on anything else besides the shifting balance of wanting just a little more, a little more. She can tell that he’s paying plenty of attention to her, though, because she’s opening her mouth to ask for that _more_, for _faster_, and before she can even form a syllable he presses another digit in along with the first. She moans instead, a formless something that _might_ have at one point been the word _yes_, if Arum’s tongue twining around her clit didn’t chase away her ability to form words at all for a moment.

“_Arum_,” she manages eventually, just because she loves the way his name tastes while she’s breathless and panting wild, and he hums against her, and then chuckles when his humming makes her hips jerk in delight. He uncurls the ribbon of his tongue from around her clit and her fingers for a moment and scrapes his teeth careful on her thigh, laughing again when her muscles jump and her breath catches.

“So… so delicious, Amaryllis,” he murmurs, and the softness of his voice runs counter to the quick rhythm of his fingers inside her, the clever way he’s curling them to send bright little shocks of heat through her body. “I could devour you, beautiful creature, I _want_ to devour you-”

“You’d- _better_,” she pants. Her hand still on his horn pushes clumsy, trying to press his mouth against her again with a groan, and his laughter is warm and _perfect_ against her as his tongue finds her again, as he flicks light and teasing until she growls through her teeth at him, and then he starts to work the length of his tongue against her clit with more determination, and a third long, textured finger finally joins the first two, curling with them.

It doesn’t take long, with his focus so fierce on her, for her to feel her peak building, for her legs to start to shake, but he holds her (_four hands_, he can have his tongue on her and his fingers in her and still have three entire hands to use to hold her close and warm), holds her through the shaking, his rhythm unrelenting and if he wants to devour her then Rilla _absolutely_ wants to be devoured-

“Arum,” she says when she feels herself trembling on the edge, because soon she won’t be able to say words at all and she wants him to hear her. “_Arum_,” she pleads, and he opens his eyes (_his violet eyes_) to look up at her, and his tongue and his fingers do not stop, and it fissures through her like the highest note in a song, like flight and freedom and electricity and magic, and he _does not stop_ as her pleasure pulses fierce and bright. He watches her, careful and precise and _hungry_, and he touches her and tastes her through every rippling shock of it until the instant that the stimulation starts to feel like too much, and then he pulls his hand and his mouth away.

He climbs up and drapes his body on top of hers again, the rumbling purr in his throat loud enough that she thinks she could probably hear it the next room over, and she laughs breathlessly as he nuzzles his snout into her neck and crowds close against her, his hands caressing her shoulders and arms and hair, restless but obviously pleased.

“Arum,” she mumbles again, and when he stops nuzzling her neck long enough to look at her she slips her hand out to cup the back of his head and pulls him back down for a kiss, moaning soft at her own taste when he flicks his tongue out to meet her lips. “Note to self, wake Arum up more often,” she breathes against his mouth, and he chuckles.

“So, how do I compare to your dreams, my Amaryllis?” he asks, and then it’s Rilla’s turn to laugh.

“You know me, Arum.” She stretches beneath him, and his scales always feel so strange and so _good_ against her bare skin. “I’m always gonna prefer the real thing to some pretty fantasy.” She reaches out, cupping his cheek and smiling. “I like what’s right in front of me.”

Arum’s gaze goes soft, his nose nudging gentle against her cheek, her ear. “As do I.”

Rilla smiles, her breath softening for a moment or two, but Arum- Arum is still very warm and very real above her, and-

“Hey,” she says softly, and he blinks his eyes back open, looking at her curiously. “So, if you’re still up for it…”

Arum laughs, pleased and wild, and then he nips at her neck. “Insatiable little-” he breaks off into a purr, his claws combing through her hair as he nuzzles against her cheek again. “You know that I cannot deny you. The pair of you make me so- so _greedy_,” he says breathlessly.

“You want to, though?” she asks, and the look he gives her says _oh please don__’t be ridiculous, Amaryllis_, quicker and more easily than words could, and she laughs again. He’s already laying on top of her, it’s not like she can pull him any closer, but she spreads her legs further and presses her palms into his shoulders. “Good. Because you’re not wrong, Arum.”

He growls, rolling his hips into hers again, and his cocks must have slipped out at some point while his tongue was inside of her, because she can feel the weight of them hot against her now and yeah, yeah she is absolutely ready for more.

“I rarely am, Amaryllis,” Arum murmurs, feigning smugness, and she grins and kisses him and flicks her tongue against the line of his lips.

“I might be pretty damn insatiable,” she murmurs against his scales. “But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t _try_.”

He growls, but the hands on her hips and the hands in her hair are both so, so gentle. “I already told you, Amaryllis. I will give you whatever it is that you want from me.”

“Oh,” Rilla says. “Well, that’s an easy one, at least.” She spreads her legs even wider and wraps them around Arum’s waist, pressing her heels into his lower back, above his tail. “I really, _really_ want you to fuck me. Right now.”

He laughs, his body shaking above hers, and his eyes are sharp and his grin is wide and his voice comes breathless when he says, “Oh, I love you, you little _menace_-”

He ducks his head closer, burying his face in the crook of her neck and flicking his tongue at the juncture of her neck and her shoulder, and she kisses where she can reach, his cheek, his jaw, his frill. “Love you too, Arum,” she breathes, feeling his hands lifting her hips, the pressure of his lower cock as he lines himself up against her. “Just, so, _so_ much.”

He presses forward, one cock sliding into her and the other dragging higher, brushing over her folds and rubbing her clit, and after his tongue and his fingers she feels like she could melt already and all he’s done is fill her. He holds still like that for a moment, his jaw clenched tight, and then he pants against her neck and slowly pulls almost all the way back before sinking into her again, and Rilla chokes out a moan and clings to him even tighter because she _knows_ the pace he intends to set before he’s three thrusts in. He lifts his hips away again, then fills her slow and deep. And then again, and then _again_ and her hips stutter automatically because _how could they not_-

His hands hold her firm, though, and he fucks her slow, methodical, deliberate. It’s _tidal_, and she feels each carefully controlled inch, feels his second cock against her too, and her legs are already shaking again. She kisses his cheek, breathes sharp against his jaw when he’s as deep as he can go, whines into his neck when he pulls back, and the thing that gets her when he fucks her like this is how _undeniable_ it feels. When he goes a little wild (and she loves it when he goes a little wild), it’s easy to just close her eyes and let go and let him carry her through, or to grin and roll on top of him and give as good as she gets. Like this, though-

Each deliberate inch. It’s so _intimate_, and so impossible to brush past any part of it when each little sensation is highlighted and she has the time to notice every detail, and there is a determination to it, too. She can feel the tension in him, can feel how easy it would be for him to loosen his control, but this is what he wants tonight and Rilla’s damn well not complaining. If she wanted him to fuck her another way, he knows that she would just say so, and honestly she still feels a little sleepy, a little mild, already warm and pliant from her first orgasm and this slow slow thorough fucking makes her feel a little _worshipped_, which is usually more of a with-Damien feeling, and that’s certainly interesting, worth noting for the future-

She’s going to come again. And Arum can tell- he unburies his face from the warmth of her neck and flicks his tongue over her mouth, purring low when she kisses back, and she can tell that he’s close too, from the way his rhythm shifts just barely, barely faster, and from the way his violet eyes are more black than purple, less iris than pupil, just now, from the way his breathing has gone sharp and shallow, from the raw, unhidden _need_ in the way he’s looking at her now.

“Don’t stop,” she says, and she knows that he won’t but still, still, that same need is thrumming through her as well and the words stumble out between gasps, not quite _helpless_ but certainly out of control, and she kisses him again, kisses his panting mouth, kisses his jaw, kisses his throat as his breath whirs sharp and he lifts his chin so she can more easily press her lips against his racing pulse. “_Don__’t stop_-”

“I wouldn’t- wouldn’t dare,” he hisses. “Would never dream of denying you- already told you, Amaryllis, anything you want-”

Her name in his voice; the way it bounces and pulls into a lingering hiss. She loves him, _Saints_ she loves him, and she wants-

“Want you,” she gasps, and it’s a complete sentence but it’s not exactly what she meant to say. “Want you to- come for me, Arum- want to feel you come for me, please-”

The noise Arum makes then is absolutely inhuman and Rilla wishes even through the frantic heat in her mind that she’d recorded it, wants to hear it again and again, and then she loses the thread of that thought because somehow, _somehow_ he adjusts his angle to fill her even _deeper_, and he keens close against her ear, the promise of his teeth against her neck but still so utterly controlled, _completely_ safe, and she feels him spill hot inside of her, onto her stomach, and that feeling and his rhythm still sturdy and his claws in her hair and his teeth against her neck and Rilla follows right behind him-

Tidal. Her second orgasm comes over her like a wave, heavy and slow and building until her mind goes blank and white and blissful, a haze she falls through slowly, and she’s still in his arms when she comes back to the world.

He’s panting hard, and she realizes that she is, too. He catches her eye and her heart stumbles, just a little, at the adoration in his expression, and then she grins and kisses the edge of his mouth, humming happily against his scales.

He pulls away from her, and after a few moments to catch their breaths he helps her to stand so they can clean themselves up, just enough to crawl back into bed together, Rilla sighing and stretching satisfied against the softness of the sheets. She’s ready to fall dead asleep again the instant her head finds a pillow, but Arum slithers beneath the sheets beside her and greedy hands pull her closer, arranging her carefully at his side so he can find a comfortable way to hold her while they both amble back towards sleep, and she laughs at the careful, welcome manhandling. More accurately: monsterhandling.

He makes a whispery noise by her ear, nonverbal nonsense she adores, and unbidden she remembers another time she tried to ply this monster from sleep with substantially less satisfying results.

Rilla snorts out a laugh, rolling more fully onto his chest, and when she speaks her voice comes in a ridiculous nasal parody of her lizard. “And _that_ is why you must _never_ touch me when I’m _sleeping_,” she mock-snarls, and then she laughs again. “Oh I had nearly forgotten about that.” She grins up at him, eyes dancing with mischief as she taps the tip of his snout with a finger. “I didn’t hear you complain quite so much _this_ time, huh?”

Arum blinks down at her, mortified for a moment with his frill pressed flat against his neck before he softens, shaking his head and laughing lightly. “Well,” he mutters, claws drifting up and down her arms, “there _are_ exceptions to nearly every rule, Amaryllis. And you- you and our poet seem to be the exception to a great many of mine.”

“Good,” Rilla grins, settling soft against him, his heartbeat and his purr both steady in her ear. “I love being a bad influence.”

He laughs again, nuzzling his snout into her hair. “Menace,” he says, quite fondly, and then he wraps two arms around her more fully, the others pulling the sheets back up over her shoulders before they wrap around her too. He settles with a sigh, resting his cheek against her hair, and there’s only one way this night could have been better, honestly, but Rilla knows better than to waste energy on an _if-only_. She’s always going to prefer the reality, even when that reality seems like it should be… _impossible_.

And that’s Arum all around, isn’t it? An undeniable reality that seems like it couldn’t possibly exist. Everything about him- not a single solitary part _should_ be. Not the bizarre structure of him, not the extra arms, not the purring or the magic of his words, not his Keep or his entire domain.

Most of all: _this_. These arms around her, that heart beating steady beneath her ear. That a monster like him could curl around her in rest, could share his (again, _impossible_) body with her, could want her, could _love_ her. Love her and Damien _both_. Not a single cell of him should be possible.

Rilla isn’t going to complain, though. The way he looks at her, the way he loves her-

It makes her feel a little bit impossible, too.

**Author's Note:**

> hey if it's not too much trouble maybe tell me your favorite line? or just tell me if this is any good at all. i crave feedback and i ain't gonna lie about that.


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